His fingers tangled into her hair, and he yanked her head backward. She moaned at the feel of it. God, I like it rough.

“God, I love when you moan and scream,” he said.

She moaned louder. He was delivering after all.

Their bodies were perfectly matched. She couldn’t stop herself. She released and felt her walls contracting around him. He grunted and jackknifed into her as he came viciously.

She lay there, panting for a minute, before cleaning up in the adjacent bathroom. Her hair was a hot mess. She finger-combed it, but anyone looking at her would know that someone had been pulling it. But she didn’t care at this point.

She turned to find Eric all put back together. The anger from earlier had dissipated. He looked euphoric.

“Want to get out of here?” he asked.

Bryna laughed. “We haven’t been here that long.”

“But I’m thinking of taking all those clothes off again already, and I’m not sure I’ll have the patience to find another room.”

She was still high off of her orgasm and maybe a little more than tipsy. All the alcohol seemed to hit her at once, and she took an unsteady step forward.

“What was in those drinks?” she murmured.

“Everclear.”

“My whole body is woozy. I can’t feel my head.”

Eric looked frightened. “In a bad way?”

“In a drunk way.” She bumped into him. “I want to dance!”

He laughed. “Okay, but no more drinks, crazy.”

She nodded her head, but she wasn’t sure if she was agreeing with him. Another drink didn’t sound that bad.

She took his hand, and he started down the stairs in front of her. She was watching her steps, so she wouldn’t slip in her heels when Eric stopped suddenly. Bryna fell into him and latched on to his arm to stay steady. Whoa! She was way drunker than she thought.

“Why’d you stop?” she slurred.

“Uh…let’s go this way.”

He tried to move her off to the right, but that was when Bryna saw what had stopped him short.

Audrey.

BRYNA MADE EYE CONTACT with Audrey across the few feet that separated them. She hadn’t thought about the fact that if Lauren was inviting everyone from school to the party that it meant Audrey would show up. She had been at Bryna’s own party at the house that Hugh had purchased for her. But it hadn’t clicked that she might be here today.

“What the fuck, Eric?” Audrey cried. She closed the gap between them.

Bryna wrinkled her nose. The last time she had seen the bitch, Audrey had been on all fours on Eric’s bed. Just the thought made the liquor in her stomach turn.

“Audrey, don’t do this tonight. Just go back to your party,” Eric encouraged.

“Are you joking? I can’t believe you’re with this whore now!” Audrey yelled loudly.

It was loud enough that nearly everyone in the immediate vicinity looked over to see who she was talking about.

“She’s not a whore,” Eric said calmly. “And we’re going to walk away and pretend this never happened.”

“You can’t be serious. You’re scared of golddigging jersey-chasers, and you’ve settled for the biggest bitch of them all?” Audrey accused.

“You have no fucking clue what you’re talking about,” Eric growled.

“I might be a bitch, but that does not make me a gold digger or a jersey-chaser,” Bryna spat.

“You’re known for both, and you want me to think it’s a coincidence that you’ve chosen Eric?”

“He’s not even a football player anymore!” Bryna yelled at her.

“Somehow that negates his multimillion-dollar trust fund?” Audrey yelled back.

Bryna’s mouth dropped open. “His what?” She looked at Eric in confusion. What the hell is she talking about?

“Audrey,” Eric said in warning, “that’s enough.”

“What is she talking about, Eric?” Bryna asked.

“It’s not enough. I hate to see you like this.” The tone of Audrey’s voice changed when she looked up at him. She sounded soothing, like she wanted to reach out and touch him. “You shouldn’t have to debase yourself by dating her. You told me yourself that you would never be interested in a slut like her. You said she was the worst kind of human imaginable.”

“You said that?” Bryna asked. Her addled mind couldn’t keep up with everything that was going on.

Did Eric really say those things about me? And what the fuck is Audrey talking about? A trust fund? He’s from Dallas. He wants to be a football coach. How the hell would he have that kind of money?

“No, I did not say that.”

“Now, you’re lying?” Audrey asked in disgust. “You’ve really lowered your standards.”

“You jealous bitch,” Bryna spat.

“Fuck off, Audrey. You’re proving me right for every reason that I left you in the first place,” he said.

Then, he pushed Bryna through the crowd without a backward glance. They made it out the door and to his car before she blew up.

“What the fuck was all that about, Eric?”

He sighed and sank into the driver’s seat. “I don’t know. I never expected her to show up and try to sabotage me.”

“She’s a fucking twat.”

“That…is true,” Eric agreed.

“Let’s go back to your place.” Bryna crossed her arms and sank back into the seat. She had a lot to process. She didn’t know what to make of anything Audrey had said. Had she acted like a major bitch because I was now dating her ex-boyfriend? Is anything she had said actually true?

Eric drove back to his house and parked the Jeep. Bryna got out without a word, and he followed her inside. She felt ridiculous, having this conversation in a slutty devil’s costume, but things needed to be said now.

“So…did you say all those things?”

“No.”

“You never called me a slut or the worst human imaginable?”

Eric sighed and ran a hand back through his hair. “Okay. Yes, I said those things, but I didn’t know you then. Once I got to know you, I realized you were nothing like that person.”

“God,” Bryna grumbled. She sat down on the couch and pushed her hands up into her hair. “I’m drunk, and it’s Halloween. I don’t want to be doing this right now.”

“I’m sorry.” Eric sank to his knees before her. He pulled her hands away from her face and stared deep into her eyes. “If I could take back the things I said about you and all the other cheerleaders, then I would. It was a total dick move.”

“I know, I know,” she breathed. “We were both under the illusion that we were different people at the time.”

“Exactly.” He seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

“But I don’t get the other stuff. What the fuck is with Audrey? What was she saying about a trust fund?” she asked in confusion.

“That…is complicated.”

“Well, we have all night.”

He nodded and took a seat next to her. “I met Audrey my freshman year and thought she was perfect. I trusted her implicitly from the start. When I blew my knee out, she was there for me every single day. She went to therapy with me. She encouraged me and helped me heal. I’m not sure I would be as strong as I am without her.”

Bryna nodded. “Then, I guess…we’re all in her debt.”

“She would want you to think that. She sure holds that over my head. But she didn’t do it for me. It took me a long time to realize that. Even after I broke up with her, I still went back to her, thinking maybe I was wrong, until she would do something again that made me realize that I was right.”

“Why did she do it?”

“She did it because she wanted a football player. When I decided I wasn’t going to risk playing anymore, she freaked the fuck out.” His voice was soft, as if recalling a recent injury. “She went on a rampage and talked to the coaches, the therapists, my parents—I mean, everyone—begging them to convince me otherwise. She wanted to get her paycheck at the end of all this, and when I refused to give it to her, she turned into a lunatic.”